Forever Changes – Love (1967)

“Forever Changes is the third studio album by the American rock band Love, released by Elektra Records in November 1967. It was the final album recorded by the original band lineup; after its completion, Bryan Maclean left the group acrimoniously and the other members were dismissed by leader Arthur Lee. The album saw the group embrace a subtler folk-oriented sound and orchestration, while primary songwriter Lee explored darker themes alluding to mortality and his creeping disillusionment with the 1960s counterculture. … In subsequent years, it became recognized as an influential document of 1960s psychedelia and was named among the greatest albums of all time by a variety of publications. … Throughout this period the band – reduced to a quintet with the departures of Alban ‘Snoopy’ Pfisterer and Tjay Cantrelli – were known to retreat to Bela Lugosi‘s mansion in Hollywood, nicknamed ‘The Castle’, where the group became further stagnated by their use of LSD and heroin. Rather than base his writings on Los Angeles’s burgeoning hippie scene, Lee’s material for Forever Changes was drawn from his lifestyle and environment. The songs reflected upon grim but blissful themes and Lee’s skepticism of the flower power movement. Writer Andrew Hultkrans explained Lee’s frame of mind at the time: ‘Arthur Lee was one member of the ’60s counterculture who didn’t buy flower-power wholesale, who intuitively understood that letting the sunshine in wouldn’t instantly vaporize the world’s (or his own) dark stuff’. Love’s third studio album also brought about a sense of urgency for Lee. With his band in disarray and growing concerns over his own mortality, Lee envisioned Forever Changes as a lament to his memory. Having already produced the group’s first two albums, Bruce Botnick was enlisted in overseeing the production of the third album along with Lee. Botnick, who had just finished working on Buffalo Springfield‘s Buffalo Springfield Again, invited Neil Young to co-produce the upcoming Love album, but Young, after initially agreeing, excused himself from the project. …”
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